For instance, in a war of secession, for a humanitarian actor to invoke the law of non-international armed conflicts implies that the secession is not (yet) successful, which is not acceptable for the secessionist authorities fighting for independence.

To classify a conflict may imply assessing questions of jus ad bellum. This can be theoretically difficult and is always politically delicate. Furthermore, the application of different rules for protection in international and in non-international armed conflicts obliges humanitarian players and victims to classify the conflict before those rules can be invoked. Attacks are launched against towns and villages, food supplies need to transit through front lines, and the same weapons are used. Indeed, in both situations, fighters and civilians are arrested and detained by “the enemy” civilians are forcibly displaced they have to flee, or the places where they live fall under enemy control. They face similar problems and need similar protection. If non-international armed conflicts are today by far more numerous than international armed conflicts, the law of international armed conflict is still quantitatively as well as qualitatively more substantial.įrom a humanitarian point of view, the victims of non-international armed conflicts should be protected by the same rules as the victims of international armed conflicts.

Applicable conventional IHL, and to a lesser extent customary IHL, varies depending on each situation. According to the typology of armed conflicts in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), two types of conflicts exist: international armed conflicts and non-international armed conflicts.

Icrc armed conflict definition